]
An entirely opposite type of composer, Hugo Wolff, shows the real
strength of modern German music in a lyric vein, sincere, direct and
fervent. His longest work for instruments has throughout the charm of
natural rhythm and melody, with subtle shading of the harmony. Though
there is no want of contrapuntal design, the workmanship never obtrudes.
It is a model of the right use of symbolic motives in frequent
recurrence and subtle variation.
In another instrumental piece, the "Italian Serenade," all kinds of
daring suspenses and gentle clashes and surprises of harmonic scene give
a fragrance of dissonant euphony, where a clear melody ever rules.
"Penthesilea," with a climactic passion and a sheer contrast of tempest
and tenderness, uttered with all the mastery of modern devices, has a
pervading thrall of pure musical beauty. We are tempted to hail in Wolff
a true poet in an age of pedants and false prophets.
PENTHESILEA.--A TRAGEDY BY HEINRICH VON KLEIST.[A]
[Footnote A: German, 1776-1811.]
As Wolff's work is admittedly modelled on Kleist's tragedy, little known
to the English world, it is important to view the main lines of this
poem, which has provoked so divergent a criticism in Germany.
On the whole, the tragedy seems to be one of those daring, even profane
assaults on elemental questions by ways that are untrodden if not
forbidden. It is a wonderful type of Romanticist poetry in the bold
choice of subject and in the intense vigor and beauty of the verse.
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